Pirates cost software industry $50 billion in 2008 Washington, DC - A fifth of PC software in the United States is pirated and the worldwide cost of piracy topped $50bn for the first time, says the annual report from IDC and the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Despite US piracy running at just 20%, market size means megabuck losses - over $9 billion in 2008. The worldwide PC software piracy rate rose for the second year in a row, from 38 percent to 41 percent, because PC shipments grew fastest in high-piracy countries such as China and India, overwhelming progress elsewhere. While emerging economies account for 45 percent of the global PC hardware market, they account for less than 20 percent of the PC software market. If the emerging economies' PC software share were the same as it is for PC hardware, the software market would grow by $40 billion a year. Lowering global piracy by just one point a year would add $20 billion in stimulus to the IT industry, says the report. The mo...
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